Our Lady Saint Mary Part 1

Our Lady Saint Mary.

by J. G. H. Barry.

PREFACE

The two papers in Part I have been published in the American Church Magazine. Of Part II Chapter 1 has been published separately; Chapters 2, 4, 7, 9 and 12 have been published in the Holy Cross Magazine. The rest of the volume is here published for the first time.

I would emphasise the fact that the contents of Part II is a series of sermons which were prepared as such, and were preached in the Church of S. Mary the Virgin, New York City, for the most part in the Winter of 1921-22. In preparing them for publication in this volume no attempt has been made to alter their sermon character. It is not a theological treatise on the Blessed Virgin that I have attempted, but a devotional presentation of her life.

I have added to the text as originally prepared certain prayers and poems. The object of the selection of the prayers, almost exclusively from the Liturgies of the Catholic Church, is to ill.u.s.trate the prevalence of the address of devotion to our Lady throughout Christendom. The poems are selected with much the same thought, and have been mostly gathered from mediaeval sources, and so far as possible, from British. I have no special knowledge of devotional poetry, but have selected such poems as I have from time to time copied into my note books. This fact has made it impossible for me to give credit for them to the extent that I should have liked. I trust that any one who is ent.i.tled to credit will accept this apology.

Much of the difficulty felt by Anglicans at expressions commonly found in prayers and hymns addressed to our Lady is due to prevalent unfamiliarity with the devotional language of the Catholic Church throughout the ages. Those whose background of thought is the theology of the Catholic Church, not in any one period, but in the whole extent of its life, will have no difficulty in such language because the limitations which are implied in it will be clear to them. To others, I can only say that it is fair to a.s.sume that the great saints of the Church of G.o.d in all times and in all places did not habitually use language which was idolatrous, and our limitations are much more likely to be at fault than their meaning. It is not true in any degree that the teaching of Catholics as to the place of the Virgin intrudes on the prerogative of our Lord. It is, as matter of fact Catholics, and not those who oppose the Catholic Religion who are upholding that prerogative. This has been excellently expressed by a modern French theologian. "We are established in the friendship of G.o.d, in the divine adoption, in the heavenly inheritance, solely in virtue of the covenent by which our souls are bound to the Son of G.o.d, and by which the goods, the merits, and the rights of the Son of G.o.d are communicated to our souls, as in the natural order, the property of the husband becomes the property of the wife. Surely, one can say nothing more than we say here, and a.s.suredly the sects opposed to the Church have never said more: indeed, they are far to-day from saying so much to maintain intact this truth, that Jesus Christ is our sole Redeemer, and to give that truth the entire extent that belongs to it."

PART ONE

CHAPTER I

OF LOYALTY

O G.o.d, who causes us to rejoice in recalling the joys of the conception, the nativity, the annunciation, the visitation, the purification, and the a.s.sumption of the blessed and glorious virgin Mary; grant to us so worthily to devote ourselves to her praise and service, that we may be conscious of her presence and a.s.sistance in all our necessities and straits, and especially in the hour of death, and that after death we may be found worthy, through her and in her, to rejoice in heaven with thee. Through &c.

SARUM MISSAL.

The dream of the Middle Ages was of one Christian society of which the Church should be the embodiment of the spiritual, and the State of the temporal interests. As there is one humanity united to G.o.d in Incarnate G.o.d, all its interests should be capable of unification in inst.i.tutions which should be based on that which is essential in humanity, and not on that which is accidental: men should be united because they are human and Christian, and not divided because of diversity of blood or color or language. The dream proved impossible of realization, and the struggle for human unity went to pieces on the rocks of the rapidly developing nationalism of the later Middle Ages.

The Reformation was the triumph of nationalism and the defeat of Catholic idealism. It resulted in a shattered Christendom in which the interests of local and h.o.m.ogeneous groups became supreme over the purely human interests. In state and Church alike patriotism has tended more and more to become dominant over the interests that are supralocal and universal. The last few years have seen an intensification of localism.

We have seen bitter scorn heaped on the few who have labored for internationalism in thought and feeling. We have seen the attempt of labor at internationalism utterly break down under the pressure of patriotic motive. We are finding that the same concentration on immediate and local interests is an insuperable bar to the realization of an ideal of internationalism which would effectively deal with questions arising between nations and put an end to war. The Church failed to establish a spiritual internationalism; the indications are that it will be long before humanitarian idealists will be able to effect a union among nations still infected with patriotic motive, such as shall bring about a subordination of local and immediate interests to the interests of humanity as such. That the general interests are also in the end the local interests is still far from the vision of the patriot.

What the growth of nationalities with its consequent rise of international jealousies and hostilities has effected in civil society, has been brought about in matters spiritual by the divisions of Christendom. The various bodies into which Christendom has been split up are infected with the same sort of localism as infects the state. They dwell with pride upon their own peculiarities, and treat with suspicion if not with contempt the peculiarities of other bodies. The effort to induce the members of any body of Christians to appreciate what belongs to others, or to try to construe Christianity in terms of a true Catholicity, is almost hopeless. All attempts at the restoration of the visible unity of the Church have been wrecked, and seem destined for long to be wrecked, on the rocks of local pride and local interests. The motives which in secular affairs lead a man to put, not only his body and his goods, as he ought, at the disposal of his country; but also induce him to surrender his mind to the prevailing party and shout, "My country, right or wrong," in matters ecclesiastical lead him to cry, "My Church, right or wrong." It is only by transcending this localism that we can hope for progress in Church or State--can hope to conquer the wars and fightings among our members that make peace impossible.

This infection of localism is not peculiar to any body of Christians.

The Oriental Churches have been largely state-bound for centuries, and, in addition, have been mentally immobile. The Roman Church with its claims to exclusive ownership of the Christian Religion has lost the vision it once had and subordinated the Catholic interests of the Church to the local interests of the Papacy. The fragments of Protestantism are too small any longer to claim the universalism claimed by the East and West, and perforce acknowledge their partial character; but it is only to indulge in a more acute patriotism, and a.s.sertion of rights of division, and the supremacy of the local over the general. The Churches of the Anglican Rite are less bound, perhaps, than others. They are restless under the limitations of localism and are haunted by a vision of an unrealized Catholicity; but they are torn by internal divisions and find their attempts at movement in any direction thwarted by the pull of opposing parties.

One result of the mental att.i.tude generated by the conditions indicated above is that any attempt to deal with subjects other than those which are authorized because they are customary, or tolerated because they are familiar, is liable to be greeted with cries of reproach and accusations of disloyalty. Such and such teachings we are told, without much effort at proof, are contrary to the teachings of the Anglican Church, or are not in harmony with that teaching, or are illegitimate attempts to bring in doctrines or practices which were definitely rejected by our fathers at the Reformation. Those who are implicated in such attempts are told that they are disturbers of the peace of the Church and are invited to go elsewhere.

As one who is not guiltless of such attempts, and as one who is becoming accustomed to be charged with novelty in teaching, and disloyalty in practice to that which is undoubtedly and historically Anglican, I have been compelled to ask myself, "What is loyalty to the Anglican Church?

Is there, in fact, some peculiar and limited form of Christianity to which I owe allegiance?" I had got accustomed to think of myself as a Catholic Christian whose lot was cast in a certain province of the Catholic Church which was administratively separated from other parts of that Church. This I felt--this separation--to be unfortunate; but I was not responsible for it, and would be glad to do anything that I could to end it. I had not thought that this administrative separation from other provinces of the Catholic Church meant that I was pledged to a different religion; I had not thought of there being an Anglican Religion. I have all my life, in intention and as far as I know, accepted the whole Catholic Faith of which it is said in a Creed accepted by the Anglican Church that "except a man believe faithfully he cannot be saved." I do not intend to believe any other Faith than that, and I intend to believe all of that; and I have not thought of myself as other than a loyal Anglican in so doing.

But criticism has led me to go back over the whole question and ask whether there is any indication anywhere in the approved doc.u.ments of the Anglican Communion of an intention at all to depart from the Faith of Christendom as it was held by the whole Catholic Church, East and West, at the time when an administrative separation from Rome was effected. Was a new faith at any time introduced? Has there at any time been any official action of the Anglican Church to limit my acceptance of the historic Faith? That many Anglican writers have denied many articles of the Catholic Faith I of course knew to be true. That some Anglican writer could be found who had denied every article of the Catholic Faith I thought quite possible. But I was not interested in the beliefs or practices of individuals. I am not at all interested in what opinions may or may not have been held by Cranmer at various stages of his career, or what opinions may be unearthed from the writings of Bale by experts in immoral literature; I am interested solely in the official utterances of the Anglican Communion.

In following out this line of investigation I have spent many weeks in the reading of many dreary doc.u.ments: but fortunately doc.u.ments are not important in proportion to the element of excitement they contain. I have read the doc.u.ments contained in the collection of Gee and Hardy ent.i.tled "Doc.u.ments Ill.u.s.trative of English Church History." I have read the "Formularies of Faith Put Forth by Authority during the Reign of Henry VIII." I have read Cardwell's "Synodalia." And I have also read "Certain Sermons or Homilies Appointed to be read in Churches at the time of Queen Elizabeth of Famous Memory." I doubt whether any other extant human being has read them.

And the upshot of the whole matter is that in none of these doc.u.ments have I found any expressed intention to depart from the Faith of the Catholic Church of the past as that Faith had been set forth by authority. No doubt in the Homilies there are things said which cannot be reconciled with the Faith of Catholic Christendom. But the Homilies are of no binding authority, and I have included them in my investigation only because I wanted their point of view. That is harmonious with the rest of the authoritative doc.u.ments--the intention is to hold the Faith: unfortunately the knowledge of some of the writers was not as pure as their intention.

The point that I am concerned with is this: there is no intention anywhere shown in the authoritative doc.u.ments of the Anglican Church to effect a change in religion, or to break with the religion which had been from the beginning taught and practised in England. The Reformation did not mean the introduction of a new religion, but was simply a declaration of governmental independence. I will quote somewhat at length from the doc.u.ments for the purpose of showing that there is no indication of an intention to set up a new Church.

One or two quotations from pre-reformation doc.u.ments will make clear the customary phraseology in England during the Middle Ages. King John's Ecclesiastical Charter of 1214 uses the terms "Church of England" and "English Church." The Magna Charta of 1215 grants that the "Church of England shall be free and have her rights intact, and her liberties uninjured." The Articuli Cleri of 1316 speak of the "English Church."

The Second Statute of Provisors of 1390 uses the t.i.tle "The Holy Church of England." "The English Church" is the form used in the Act "De Haeretico Comburendo" of 1401, as it is also in "the Remonstrance against the Legatine Powers of Cardinal Beaufort" of 1428[1].

[Footnote 1: Doc.u.ments in Gee & Hardy.]

These quotations will suffice to show the customary way of speaking of the Church in England. If this customary way of speaking went on during and after the Reformation the inference is that there had no change taken place in the way of men's thinking about the Church; that they were unconscious of having created a new or a different Church. We know that the Protestant bodies on the Continent and the later Protestant bodies in England did change their way of thinking about the Church from that of their fathers and consequently their way of speaking of it. But the formal doc.u.ments of the Church of England show no change. "The Answer of the Ordinaries" of 1532 appeals as authoritative to the "determination of Scripture and Holy Church," and to the determination of "Christ's Catholic Church." The "Conditional Restraint of Annates" of 1532 protests that the English "as well spiritual as temporal, be as obedient, devout, catholic, and humble children of G.o.d and Holy Church, as any people be within any realm christened." In the Act for "The Restraint of Appeals" of 1533, which is the act embodying the legal principle of the English Reformation, it is the "English Church" which acts. The statement in the "Act Forbidding Papal Dispensations and the Payment of Peter's Pence" of 1534 is entirely explicit as to the intention of the English authorities. It declares that nothing in this Act "shall be hereafter interpreted or expounded that your grace, your n.o.bles and subjects intend, by the same, to decline or vary from the congregation of Christ's Church in any things concerning the very articles of the Catholic Faith of Christendom[2]."

[Footnote 2: Gee & Hardy.]

These doc.u.ments date from the reign of Henry VIII. In the same reign another series of authoritative doc.u.ments was put forth which contains the same teaching as to the Church. "The Inst.i.tution of a Christian Man"

set forth in 1536, in the article on the Church has this: "I believe a.s.suredly--that there is and hath been from the beginning of the world, and so shall endure and continue forever, one certain number, society, communion, or company of the elect and faithful people of G.o.d.... And I believe a.s.suredly that this congregation ... is, in very deed the city of heavenly Jerusalem ... the holy catholic church, the temple or habitacle of G.o.d, the pure and undefiled espouse of Christ, the very mystical body of Christ," "The Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian Man" of 1543 in treating of the faith declares that "all those things which were taught by the apostles, and have been by an whole universal consent of the church of Christ ever sith that time taught continually, ought to be received, accepted, and kept, as a perfect doctrine apostolic." It is further taught in the same doc.u.ment in the eighth article, that on "The Holy Catholic Church," that the Church is "catholic, that is to say, not limited to any one place or region of the world, but is in every place universally through the world where it pleaseth G.o.d to call people to him in the profession of Christ's name and faith, be it in Europe, Africa, or Asia. And all these churches in divers countries severally called, although for the knowledge of the one from the other among them they have divers additions of names, and for their most necessary government, as they be distinct in places, so they have distinct ministers and divers heads in earth, governors and rulers, yet be all these holy churches but one holy church catholic, invited and called by one G.o.d the Father to enjoy the benefit of redemption wrought by our Lord and Saviour Jesu Christ, and governed by one Holy Spirit, which teacheth this foresaid one truth of G.o.d's holy word in one faith and baptism[3]."

[Footnote 3: Formularies of Faith in the Reign of Henry VIII.]

With the accession of Edward VI. the Protestant element in the Reformation gained increased influence. Our question is, Did it succeed in imprinting a new theory of the nature and authority of the Church on the formal and authoritative utterances of the Church in England? The first "Act of Uniformity" of 1549 contains the now familiar appeal to Scripture and to the primitive Church, and the Book set forth is called "The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments, and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church, after the Use of the Church of England." The "Second Act of Uniformity," 1552, uses the same language about the Church of England and the primitive Church. Pa.s.sing on to the reign of Elizabeth, in the "Injunctions" of 1559 there is set forth "a form of bidding the prayers," which begins: "Ye shall pray for Christ's Holy Catholic Church, that is for the whole congregation of Christian people dispersed throughout the whole world, and especially for the Church of England and Ireland." In the "Act of Supremacy" of the same year it is provided that an opinion shall "be ordered, or adjudged to be heresy, by the authority of the canonical Scriptures, or by the first four general Councils, or any of them, or by any other general Council wherein the same was declared heresy by the express and plain words of the said canonical Scriptures." This test of doctrine is repeated in Canon VI of the Canons of 1571. "Preachers shall ... see to it that they teach nothing in the way of a sermon ... save what is agreeable to the teaching of the Old or New Testament, and what the Catholic fathers and ancient bishops have collected from this self-same doctrine[4]."

[Footnote 4: Doc.u.ments in Gee & Hardy.]

It is hardly worth while to spend much time on the Homilies. I will simply note that they continue the appeal to the primitive Church which is a.s.serted to have been holy, G.o.dly, pure and uncorrupt; and to the "old holy fathers and most ancient learned doctors" which are quoted as authoritative against later innovations. They still speak of the Church of England as continuous with the past. I do not find that they treat the contemporary reformers as of authority or quote them as against the traditional teaching of the Church.

We will go on to one more stage, that is, to the Canons of 1604 which represent the mind of the Church of England at the time of the accession of James I. They declare that "whosoever shall hereafter affirm, That the Church of England, by law established under the King's majesty, is not a true and an apostolical church, teaching and maintaining the doctrine of the apostles; let him be excommunicated." (III) They appeal to the "Ancient fathers of the Church, led by the example of the apostles." (x.x.xI) In treating of the use of the sign of the Cross in baptism they a.s.sert that its use follows the "rules of Scripture and the practice of the primitive Church." And further, "This use of the sign of the Cross in baptism was held in the primitive Church, as well by the Greeks as the Latins, with one consent and great applause." And replying to the argument from abuse the canon goes on: "But the abuse of a thing doth not take away the lawful use of it. Nay, so far was it from the purpose of the Church of England to forsake and reject the Churches of Italy, France, Spain, Germany, or any such like Churches, in all things that they held and practised, that, as the Apology of the Church of England confesseth, it doth with reverence retain those ceremonies, which do neither endanger the Church of G.o.d, nor offend the minds of sober men." (x.x.x)

It appears clear from a study of the pa.s.sages quoted and of many others of kindred nature that the Anglican Church did not start out upon its separate career with any intention of becoming a sect; it did not complain of the corruption of the existing religion and declare its purpose to show to the world what true and pure religion is. It did not put forward as the basis of its action the existing corruption of doctrine, but the corruption of administration. Its claim was a claim to manage its own local affairs, and was put into execution when the Convocation of Canterbury voted in the negative on the question submitted to it, viz., "Whether the Roman pontiff has any greater jurisdiction bestowed on him by G.o.d in Holy Scripture in this realm of England, than any other foreign bishop?"

The att.i.tude indicated is one that has been characteristic of the Anglican Church ever since. It has always been restless in the presence of a divided Christendom; the sin of the broken unity has always haunted it. It never has taken the smug att.i.tude of sectarianism, a placid self-satisfaction with its own perfection. It has felt the constant pull of the Catholic ideal and has been inspired by it to make effort after effort for the union of Christendom. It has never lost the sense that it was in itself not complete but a part of a greater whole. It has never seen in the existing shattered state of the Christian Church anything but the evidences of sin. Its appeal has constantly been, not to its own sufficiency for the determination of all questions, but to the Scriptures as interpreted by the undivided Church. If it has at times been p.r.o.ne to overstress the authority of some ideal and undefined primitive Church, it was because it thought that there and there only could the Catholic Church be found speaking in its ideal unity.

This the att.i.tude of the Anglican Church of the past is its att.i.tude to-day. The Lambeth Conference of 1920 gave voice to it:

"The Conference urges on every branch of the Anglican Communion that it should prepare its members for taking their part in the universal fellowship of the re-united Church, by setting before them the loyalty which they owe to the universal Church, and the charity and understanding which are required of the members of so inclusive a society."

Commenting upon this utterance of the Lambeth Conference the three bishops who are the joint authors of "Lambeth and Reunion" say:

The bishops at Lambeth "beg for loyalty to the universal Church. The doctrinal standards of the undivided Church must not be ignored. Nor must modern developments, consistent with the past, be ruled out merely because they are modern. Men must hold strongly what they have received; but they must forsake the policy of denying one another's positive presentment of truth. That only must be forbidden which the universal fellowship cannot conceivably accept within any one of its groups[5]."

[Footnote 5: Lambeth and Rennion. By the bishops of Peterborough, Zanzibar and Hereford.]

The bishops just quoted add: "We rejoice indeed at this new mind of the Lambeth Conference." Whether it is a new mind in Lambeth Conferences we need not consider; it is certainly no new mind in the Anglican Church, but is precisely its characteristic att.i.tude of not claiming perfection or finality for itself, but of looking beyond itself to Catholic Christendom, and longing for the time when reunion of the churches which now make up its "broken unity" will enable it to speak with the same voice of authority with which it did in its primitive and undivided state.

In attempting to decide what as a priest of the Anglican Communion one may or may not teach or practice, one is bound to have regard, not to what is a.s.serted by anyone, even by any bishop, to be "disloyal" or "unanglican," but to the principles expressed or implied in the utterances of the Church itself. From those utterances as I have reviewed them, it appears to me that a number of general principles may be deduced for the guidance of conduct.

I. The Churches of the Anglican Communion are bound by the entire body of Catholic dogma formulated and accepted universally in the pre-Reformation Church.

The Anglican doc.u.ments, to be sure, speak constantly of the "Primitive Church," but they do not anywhere define what they mean by that; and frequently, by their appeal to the "undivided Church," and to "general Councils," they seem to include in their undefined term much more than is commonly understood. In any case, the Church has no special authority because it is _primitive_: its authority results not from its being primitive but from its being _Church_. The only point of the Anglican appeal would be the universal acceptance of a given doctrine. Such universal acceptance must be taken as proof of its primitiveness, that is, of its being contained, explicitly or implicitly, in the original deposit of faith. The Anglican Church was content with the summing up of this Faith in the Three Creeds, and attempted to formulate no new Greed of her own--the x.x.xIX Articles are not strictly a Creed: they are not articles of Faith but of Religion. But the very history of the Creeds implies that they are not final, that is, complete, but that they are a summing up of the Catholic Religion to date. There are truths which the circ.u.mstances of the Church in the Conciliar period had not brought into prominence which later events compelled the Church to express its mind upon. Such a truth is that of the Real Presence of our Lord in the Sacrament of the Altar. This truth had attained explicit acceptance throughout the Church before the Reformation, sufficiently witnessed by the liturgies in use. It is also embodied in the Anglican liturgy. If anyone thinks the language of the Anglican Church doubtful on this point, the principles enunciated by the Church compel interpretation in accord with the mind of the universal Church. There are other truths which are binding on us on the same basis of universal consent, but I am not seeking to apply the principle in every case but only to ill.u.s.trate it.

II. There is another cla.s.s of truths or doctrines widely held in Christendom, which yet cannot be cla.s.sed as dogmas of the faith. Such a doctrine is that of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This doctrine has been made of faith in the Roman communion, but has not yet ec.u.menical acceptance, and therefore may be doubted without sin by members of the Greek or Anglican Churches. What we need to avoid, as the Lambeth Conference has reminded us, is a purely insular and provincial att.i.tude in relation to doctrines which have not been formally set forth by Anglican authority. The Anglican Church has tried its best to impress upon us that there is no such thing as an Anglican Religion; there is but one Religion--the Religion of G.o.d's Catholic Church. What we are to seek to know is not the mind "of the Anglican reformers," or the mind "of the Caroline divines," but the mind of the Catholic Church. Wherever we shall find that mind expressed, though in terms unfamiliar to us, we are bound to treat it with respect. We are to seek to know the truth that the truth may make us free--from all pride and prejudice, as well as from heresy and blasphemy. And we shall best come at this mind in its widest meaning by the study of the writings of the saints of all ages and of all parts of the Church. It may fairly be inferred that those who have attained great perfection in the Catholic life have achieved it by the application of Catholic truth to every day living.

III. The members of the Anglican Church have the same freedom as other Catholics in the matter of theological speculation. What was done at the Reformation was not final in the sense that we are never to believe or to teach anything that is not found in Anglican formularies. The fact that a certain doctrine like that of the Invocation of Saints was omitted from the Anglican formularies is not fatal to its practice. The grounds of its omission in practice may or may not have been well judged. But the theory of it was never denied, it is indeed contained in the Creeds themselves, and change in circ.u.mstances may justify its revival in practice.

Moreover, the theology of the Christian Church is not a body of static doctrine, but is the expression of the ceaseless meditation of the saints upon the truths revealed to us by G.o.d. To suppose that any age whatever has exhausted the meaning of the Revealed Truth would be absurd. It is inexhaustible. So long as the mind of the Church is pondering it, it brings out from it things old and new. Among ourselves it is perhaps at present more desirable that we should bring out the old things than seek to find the new. The historic circ.u.mstances of the Anglican Church have been such as to lead to the practical disuse of much that is of great spiritual value in the treasury of the Church. It is largely in the attempt to bring into use the riches that have been abandoned that some are to-day incurring the charge of disloyalty--a charge that they are not careful to answer, if they may be permitted to minister to a larger spiritual life in the Church they love.